The multi-page e-book tablet computers are coming; take a look at this overview of the models that are promised (or prototyped).
Dual-Display Ebook Reader Project
A two-page e-book reader has been prototyped by researchers at Maryland and Berkeley Universities. The basic idea is that users will be able to move to the next set of pages with a flipping motion that comes naturally to regular dead tree book readers. Read more about to see how this Two Page E-Book Makes Readers Flip .
Toshiba must be wondering what all the fuss is over Microsoft's Courier. This dual-sided electronic book has all the same hardware, and this prototype was introduced six years ago.
Interesting new information has surfaced about Microsoft's Courier two-page ebook concept. Apparently, it actually exists as a prototype, for one thing. Take a look at this video to see how it works.
It's been described as less than an inch thick, with a total weight of about one pound, and apparently runs on Tegra 2 and runs on the same OS as the Zune HD, Pink, and Windows Mobile 7 Series (WinCE 6). The rumored release date is Q3/Q4 of 2010, but we'll see.
Two-Sided Electronic Paper
Okay, maybe this design is cheating just a bit, but it still has two distinct 'pages'. Mitsubishi has a prototype reversible LCD panel; a two-sided liquid crystal display that can show different images on each side. Read more about the Reversible LCD.
This dual panel touchscreen just surfaced at CeBIT in Hannover. It's a conceptual device, but the prototypes ran Windows 7. It's multi-page tablet style, with a little more processing horsepower than the average tablet.
Speaking of more horsepower, science fiction fans of course remember the original multi-page e-book; the fabulous Runcible from Neal Stephenson's 1995 novel The Diamond Age:
...Runcible, whose pages [smart paper] were thicker and more densely packed with computational machinery, each sheet folded four times into a sixteen-page signature, thirty-two signatures brought together in a spine that, in addition to keeping the book from falling apart, functioned as an enormous switching system and database.
(Read more about Stephenson's Runcible)
Hopefully, readers will let me know what I've left out, so I can add them.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 3/8/2010)
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!)
is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for
the Invention Category that interests
you, the Glossary, the Invention
Timeline, or see what's New.
A System To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'